GIRLS AND WOMEN ***
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The Riverside Library for Young People
NUMBER 8
GIRLS AND WOMEN
BY
E. CHESTER
(Harriet E. Paine)
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
_Copyright, 1890,_
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
_All rights reserved._
_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. AN AIM IN LIFE 7
II. HEALTH 24
III. A PRACTICAL EDUCATION 38
IV. SELF-SUPPORT.--SHALL GIRLS SUPPORT THEMSELVES? 49
V. SELF-SUPPORT.--HOW SHALL GIRLS SUPPORT THEMSELVES? 63
VI. OCCUPATIONS FOR THE RICH 82
VII. CULTURE 99
VIII. THE ESSENTIALS OF A LADY 116
IX. THE PROBLEM OF CHARITY 127
X. THE ESSENTIALS OF A HOME 136
XI. HOSPITALITY 154
XII. BRIC-À-BRAC 165
XIII. EMOTIONAL WOMEN 173
XIV. A QUESTION OF SOCIETY 187
XV. NARROW LIVES 201
XVI. CONCLUSION.--A MISCELLANEOUS CHAPTER 218
GIRLS AND WOMEN.
I.
AN AIM IN LIFE.
For the sake of girls who are just beginning life, let me tell the stories of some other girls who are now middle-aged women. Some of them have succeeded and some have failed in their purposes, and often in a surprising way.
I remember a girl who left school at seventeen with the highest honors. Immediately we began to see her name in the best magazines. The heavy doors of literature seemed to swing open before her. Then suddenly we heard no more of her. A dozen years later she was known to no one outside her own circle. She was earning her living as book-keeper in a large five-cent store! She led the life of a drudge, and that was not the worst of it. She was a sensitive woman, and there was much that was mortifying in her position. All her Greek and Italian books were packed away. She knew no more of science than when she left school. At odd minutes she read good novels, and that was all she had to do with literature. Those who had expected much of her thought her life was a failure, and she thought so too.
Yet there is another side to the picture. The aim she had set for herself in life was not to be an author, though that idea had taken strong hold on her, and she tried to realize it in spite of great discouragements. This was her minor aim, but the grand aim with her had always been to lead the divine life at whatever cost. It proved to cost almost everything. Her utmost help was needed for her large family, which was poor. Unusual as her success with editors had been, no girl of seventeen could depend on a large income from magazines. A good salary was offered her as book-keeper, and she accepted it.
